techSunday, June 18, 2006
follow the link and watch the short film - it's all about the mpaa/riaa taking your legal rights to movies and music.
This is a real thing going on now and they are using some pretty evil methods.
This is a real thing going on now and they are using some pretty evil methods.
Thursday, June 15, 2006
read the article and consider this: MSN Messenger is developed by the same company that is claiming that their newest operating system is the most secure piece of software ever developed. Hmm.
Friday, June 09, 2006
New profile photo
I'm updating my profile photo - this post is just to get the thing onto the server.
Thursday, June 08, 2006
ubuntu, mplayer/mencoder, and ripperX
ubuntu is pretty cool. It's by far the best desktop linux distro for the average guy. You gotta jump some hoops to get it to do things like rip cds and dvds, but you can get it. I had to fix some of my dvd ripping scripts, but it's all working now.
mplayer is by far the best video player available for any platform. I use it's twin mencoder for all my ripping - the resulting videos won't play well in anything but mplayer - I suppose that I could learn how to make it create media player friendly files, but I have no motivation to do so. I save some time on the encoding by just copying the audio stream directly from the dvd instead of re-encoding it. I could save a few megabytes if I did re-encode it, but not enough to make it worth the effort. And this is one of the main reasons that they don't play well with media player - it doesn't like to find dvd audio streams in avi files for some reason and won't play them correctly - even though it can handle the exact same streams when found on a dvd. Another thing is aspect ratio - mencoder can encode the aspect into the file, but only mplayer can read it properly. Also, if the ratio is wrong then it's possible to correct it without modifying the video file at all - just create a file specific config file for the video - if it's in the same directory as the video file then it will be parsed by mplayer and you can set the correct aspect ratio and all kinds of other stuff - volume amplification, etc.
ripperX is a cheap little cd ripper that I found for linux - it's actually just a front end for a number of other programs that handle the actual ripping and encoding and junk. It's not fancy or pretty, but it's my new favorite ripper - it has all the features that I like in a ripper and none of the annoyances of other rippers - configuration is simple and straight forward, it handles cddb lookups, the interface is simple, and it gives you a nice little pop-up window when ripping is finished (this might be considered an annoying "feature", but I'm sure it's possible to turn it off - like if I'm watching a movie or something while ripping and don't want this junk popping up). I was bummed when cdex wasn't available for linux, but ripperX is at least as good.
mplayer is by far the best video player available for any platform. I use it's twin mencoder for all my ripping - the resulting videos won't play well in anything but mplayer - I suppose that I could learn how to make it create media player friendly files, but I have no motivation to do so. I save some time on the encoding by just copying the audio stream directly from the dvd instead of re-encoding it. I could save a few megabytes if I did re-encode it, but not enough to make it worth the effort. And this is one of the main reasons that they don't play well with media player - it doesn't like to find dvd audio streams in avi files for some reason and won't play them correctly - even though it can handle the exact same streams when found on a dvd. Another thing is aspect ratio - mencoder can encode the aspect into the file, but only mplayer can read it properly. Also, if the ratio is wrong then it's possible to correct it without modifying the video file at all - just create a file specific config file for the video - if it's in the same directory as the video file then it will be parsed by mplayer and you can set the correct aspect ratio and all kinds of other stuff - volume amplification, etc.
ripperX is a cheap little cd ripper that I found for linux - it's actually just a front end for a number of other programs that handle the actual ripping and encoding and junk. It's not fancy or pretty, but it's my new favorite ripper - it has all the features that I like in a ripper and none of the annoyances of other rippers - configuration is simple and straight forward, it handles cddb lookups, the interface is simple, and it gives you a nice little pop-up window when ripping is finished (this might be considered an annoying "feature", but I'm sure it's possible to turn it off - like if I'm watching a movie or something while ripping and don't want this junk popping up). I was bummed when cdex wasn't available for linux, but ripperX is at least as good.
Friday, June 02, 2006
Follow the link to the slashdot post which has a link to the original article.
The problem with email is that people are stupid and people are assholes.
Trying to fix this by changing the technology won't work.
The nice thing about email is that anyone can send a message to anyone else and all they need to know is the email address. Sure, this allows spam and all sorts of malicious emails, but it only takes a little bit of sense to combat these things (Dumbass, don't open an .exe attachment!)
Any sort of protocol level forced encryption, authentication, etc will only make email more of a pain in the ass. These things are available on top of the email protocol and there's no reason they couldn't be used without messing with the basic protocols or generic email capability.
The best way to prevent spam and other junk is to keep your email address out of spammer's hands. Don't give it out to the illegal/porn sites you're visiting every night, don't fall for the free crap scams where they "need" your email address, etc. Don't leave it on fast-food comment cards or other junk like that.
The problem with email is that people are stupid and people are assholes.
Trying to fix this by changing the technology won't work.
The nice thing about email is that anyone can send a message to anyone else and all they need to know is the email address. Sure, this allows spam and all sorts of malicious emails, but it only takes a little bit of sense to combat these things (Dumbass, don't open an .exe attachment!)
Any sort of protocol level forced encryption, authentication, etc will only make email more of a pain in the ass. These things are available on top of the email protocol and there's no reason they couldn't be used without messing with the basic protocols or generic email capability.
The best way to prevent spam and other junk is to keep your email address out of spammer's hands. Don't give it out to the illegal/porn sites you're visiting every night, don't fall for the free crap scams where they "need" your email address, etc. Don't leave it on fast-food comment cards or other junk like that.